The Image staff muses on the culture of keeping up appearances

It's unavoidable. When discussing circa-1970s British punk-rock style, seminal band The Sex Pistols will always dominate the conversation.

After all, these were the guys who first turned safety pins and green hair into fashion statements (with a lot of help from guru and manager Malcolm McLaren, who passed away last Thursday from cancer), and gifted disaffected youth the world over with a new, decidedly rebellious, uniform.

And no one wore the original punk-rock look with more style and swagger than lead singer John Lydon (a.k.a. Johnny Rotten), who will appear with his post-Pistols band, Public Image Limited (PiL), at Club Nokia Theater on Tuesday night -- kicking off the group's North American tour.

After dropping the "Rotten" act, Lydon suited up for life in PiL in 1978 in madly plaid suits (always artfully distressed), battered college professor-style loafers, striped socks, blazers and trench coats with major shoulder pads that tapered down, triangle-style, into slim, cropped pant legs (in the mid '80s), Max Headroom-style sunglasses and grandpa-style plaid sweaters. His hair was -- and continues to be -- a bird's nest of orange-blond spikes.

Little has changed about Lydon's look since the 1990s -- so don't expect a major fashion moment at the show -- but that's what renders him one of rock's most fashionable men. He boasts personal, not malleable, style.